UK: The Lessons of Manchester

While Corbyn seems to be saying that Britain's foreign policy is the reason the United Kingdom is being targeted by Islamists, this view seems to be at odds with what the Islamists themselves have said. The Islamic State's propaganda magazine, Dabiq, explained perfectly clearly: "The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam."

Defending what we value would seem the better choice.

Here we are again. According to the analysis of the newly elected Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, the Manchester suicide bomber "was a terrorist, not a Muslim" -- despite all evidence to the contrary. After yet another mass casualty terrorist attack, elected leaders seems unable to attribute any of these attacks to the supremacist ideology that caused it: radical Islam.

At what point does an individual cease to be a Muslim and start to become a terrorist? Is there a definitive moment? Why can an individual not be a Muslim and a terrorist. Especially if that individual says he is?

Or is this just a racism of lowered expectations?

Refusing to name the problem also takes power away from Muslim reformers who are seeking to remove violence and bigotry from Islam, as well as other religious demands under which they would prefer not live -- such as the lack of free speech, lack of separation of powers, subjugation of women and death penalty for apostasy.

Also, how come no one makes a distinction between religion and violence with any other faith? During the Inquisition, no one would ever claim that Torquemada was not a Christian. Why should this distinction apply only to radical Islam?

Perhaps it is just easier to put short-term political futures ahead of national security, and short term political gains ahead of addressing harsh political truths. That attitude only imperils the rights and Judeo-Christian values we may prefer to keep.

No one wants to blame the entire Islamic community for the actions of a few of its members -- just as all Germans were not Nazis -- but why can one not call Islamic terrorism exactly that and still emphasize that not all Muslims are terrorists?

Many would have it that in the wake of massive bombings and other terrorist attacks -- from America's 9/11, to London's 7/7, multiple attacks in Paris, Nice, Toulouse, Berlin, Westminster, Copenhagen, Brussels, Orlando, Manchester, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and so on -- that the major crime is "Islamophobia" and not the attacks themselves. Worse, the silence of so many Muslims in the wake of those attacks does not help to dispel an impression of indifference. "Qui tacet consentit": He who is silent consents.

Britain's leader of the Labour Party opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, stated the attacks were the fault of the West:

"Many experts... have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries and terrorism here at home. An informed understanding of the causes of terrorism is an essential part of an effective response that will protect the security of our people, that fights rather than fuels terrorism."

So, the conquests of Persia, the Byzantine Empire, the Middle East, North Africa, Greece, northern Cyprus, Spain and most of Eastern Europe do not count? Only our wars count? Who is doing the counting?

What "foreign intervention" prompted the fatwa of a multi-million dollar bounty on the head of Salman Rushdie for writing a novel? What "foreign intervention" provoked bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania before 9/11? What "foreign policy" prompted the bombing of a Yemeni hotel in 1992? What prompts Islamists to kill thousands of fellow Muslims and Yazidis -- what offence did their foreign policy commit?

While Corbyn seems to be saying that Britain's foreign policy is the reason the United Kingdom is being targeted by Islamists, this view seems to be at odds with what the Islamists themselves have said. The Islamic State's propaganda magazine, Dabiqexplained, perfectly clearly:

"The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam."

That is pretty succinct. Who might know better what Islamists think, Corbyn or Islamists? Our foreign policy is not the problem; our values are. We are seen, it seems, as degenerate, gender-unsegregated, music-loving, idolators. Western nations and their citizens refuse to become Muslim, accept Allah and bow to the demands of Islamic law, sharia. End of story.

As long as Western nations remain man-made democracies and not divinely-made Islamic States, these nations will be the major target for Islamists.

There seem to be two choices: either become more like Islamists, adopt sharia, and continue not to address the coercion out of fear that we might be further attacked -- we will be anyway -- or to confront the threat, now, before it becomes larger and costlier to contain, in lives and treasure.

The entire aim of terrorism is to achieve political change by using violence to intimidate. Do we really want to change our way of life just to appease terrorists, allowing them to win?

Corbyn presents a choice of fighting against Islamism and thereby making ourselves into targets, or failing to do so in order to appease Islamists and thereby surrendering to a religious autocracy. As Islamists highlight that, regardless of our policies, they will attack us unless we embrace Islam, defending what we value would seem the better choice. It is time for Europe's leaders to face up to the reality.

Robbie Travers, a political commentator and consultant, is Executive Director of Agora, former media manager at the Human Security Centre, and a law student at the University of Edinburgh.

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19 Reader Comments

Peter Sullivan • Jun 3, 2017 at 14:40

"The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands..."

In this article the author seems to assume the above analysis is true, that the West is the enemy of most or all jihadist groups and is fighting against it. Strategically it isn't. Excepting perhaps ISIS, the evidence is to the contrary: that Islamist militant groups have a lot of common ground with Western states' aims, especially in the Middle-east and in north Africa, and they receive moral and material support from the West. Both wish to overthrow relatively secular governments - because while people like Assad (and previously Saddam and Gaddafi) hold together their countries, the West wishes to topple them to gain geopolitical advantage over the region, to weaken it, whatever the cost, even if that means terror attacks in the UK, France, Germany and the US. The high risk of such attacks are considered a risk worth taking by Western states.

Western policy may indeed have helped cause jihadi terror in the West, but mainly because it destabilises states and encourages militant groups and individuals to thrive. It's not at heart a case of these attacks being revenge against the West for their foreign campaigns (why should they be revenge, if the West shares the aims of jihadi movements?), it's simply that the Islamists have been emboldened in their cause by the West's support.

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Ephesian • Jun 3, 2017 at 10:30

I went to a hustings last night for the upcoming elections. EVERY single one of the candidates refused to call out the Manchester bombings for what it was. They all agreed that "this young man" (the bomber) had taken a "wrong turning" and if more money was put into social services then this bombing would never have happened! Typical, throw money by the sackful at any problem, but don't upset the Muslim population. One candidate even said it was nothing to do with Islam....dear oh dear! If Corbyn manages to get elected then literally it will take God to save us all. I pray it be so, for us, for our children, for our grandchildren.

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Peter D Gardner • Jun 1, 2017 at 20:03

It should be obvious to people that Islam is on the march. One only has to look back to the 1930s to see how easily most people succeed in resist the truth of slowly building but terrible threats to civilisation itself. Hitler was quite open abut his intentions. He published them in Mein Kampf. Still, few people took him seriously. Most denied the threat, denied any danger in Hitler's rise. We like to blame Chamberlain. The truth is that he was following popular opinion which by its votes produced appeasing ministers, appeasing MPs and thus a split cabinet. To admit that now would mean we, most of us, were at fault, not just Chamberlain. We deny that in the same way we deny that Islam is a threat to the West. We cannot bear it. We cannot face having to fight. We put it off. We forget the axiom that freedom is never valued more highly than when it is lost.

But Islam will not give up. So, how long will it be until enough people realise their loss and accept they need to fight to regain it.

Islam has two main mechanisms. Violence is one and well explained in this article. The other is the weakness at the heart of Western societies and states: democracy and the rule of law. Democracy is simply a matter of numbers, high birthrates and immigration bringing and spreading Islam and its associated cultures. Each gets a vote of equal power to the Western host's vote. No need to make a noise. Just vote. That will partly exploit the rule of law, because laws are made to respond to votes - in part. But this effect can be amplified by alliances, informal or otherwise, with any manner of opponent of a current regime, with a bias towards the less well of, the left, and those who dislike Western capitalism or culture for whatever reason, all potentially usefully gullible who will help curtail exposure and criticism of Islam.

Secondly there are many ways of by-passing democracy. Rights based activist groups, the left again (always the Left) prepared to assert themselves over governments by demonstrating, rioting or whatever and the more sophisticated end of the spectrum by lobbying, mounting court cases, managing publicity etc Above all there is the EU, undemocratic and unaccountable to ordinary people and yet has primacy of law over elected national parliaments and its very own politicised court whose terms of reference require it to enforce EU law to the advantage of the EU. By its express aim of subjugating nations to its rule it declares itself the perfect vehicle by which powerful lobbies can by-pass democracy. Islam has the necessary power. However, it must assert it secretively, not openly for fear of a backlash. The Left and other gullible Westerners who have completely rejected their own religions and thus forget the power religion can wield, help to silence the backlash using arguments as ironically stupid as Islam is equivalent to any other. But still. All in good time. We can wait a bit longer.

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Michael L, Stewart • Jun 1, 2017 at 18:54

"Refusing to name the problem also takes power away from Muslim reformers who are seeking to remove violence and bigotry from Islam, as well as other religious demands under which they would prefer not live -- such as the lack of free speech, lack of separation of powers, subjugation of women and death penalty for apostasy."

What would remain?

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Connie Walsh • Jun 1, 2017 at 17:09

I did some research into this author and cannot believe he is only a student in his early 20s! With all the ills of pro-Islamist thinkers besmirching universities across the US and the developed world, a dose of sense from Mr Travers is much welcome!

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D J • Jun 1, 2017 at 14:50

In the recent debate Q and A with Theresa May, Jeremy Cornyn described 'The wonderful religion of Islam'. This was just days after the Manchester bombing, but remember he has Abu Hamza's mosque in Finsbury within his constituency.

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Rich • Jun 1, 2017 at 00:38

Islam can be divided into two two groups, and two groups only. Those who die fighting for Allah (jihad) thus go directly to paradise, and other Muslims who might or might not be allowed into paradise, depending on Allah's will. Mohammad actually cursed "moderate" Muslims for not partaking in jihad. Allowing a Muslim four wives and all the concubines he could support ensured there would be in perpetuity a sufficiently large number of disenfranchised youths gullible enough to go for the first option ASAP for the 72 virgins especially designed for eternal sexual satisfaction and rivers of wine. In another grand showing of his cleverness, Mohammad also proclaimed that any and all not submitting to Islam were rightful objects of whatever purposes satisfied Muslims. This is what our "leaders" refer to as the religion of "peace". Attempting to integrate all of this into a western culture will be as successful as coercing Christians into worshiping Easter Island's Moai in place of Jesus on the cross.

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Adeshinor Adewumi • Jun 1, 2017 at 00:09

The west knew what it was getting itself into by allowing these people to come and settle. There should a clear difference between refugees and asylum seekers, and why bring them all the way from the Middle East seeing that Saudi Arabia is bigger than most countries that took these people in, and the have the same religion and culture.

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JohntheMAd • May 31, 2017 at 20:52

"At what point does an individual cease to be a Muslim and start to become a terrorist?"

What an odd statement. By now it ought to be blindingly obvious to even the simply minded that the first affiliation does not preclude the second.

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William Taylor JohntheMAd • Jun 2, 2017 at 06:03

I think the point of this sentence was to expose how stupid it is. Sometimes asking a rhetorical question is a good way to unveil the thinking of our enemies by putting their logic back to them in a simple form. Many of them would try to offer an answer to the question. Whilst I think Travers isn't trying to do this, and doesn't believe there is such an answer because the basic premise of said question is to be considered flawed.

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Podargus • May 31, 2017 at 14:57

Corbyn doesn't even make useful idiot grade.

And good luck with the "Muslim reformers" - pigs might fly.

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Richard Carlyon • May 31, 2017 at 14:55

R. Travers is correct in all aspects, and even though this has been said many times with increasing frequency it does not seem to be getting through. My response has been to inform my adult children of all this and point them towards sources. This has not prevented harsh criticism of myself. My daughter tells me I should be writing scare stories for the Sun, my son tells me I am a bigot. My long-term female friend threatens to end a 27-year friendship. These sorts of social and relationship pressures are part of the problem. We must not give up and make the necessary sacrifices. Shadilay!

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Elizabeth Lawson • May 31, 2017 at 11:37

Jeremy Corbyn and his ilk are the principal reason the world is in the mess that it finds itself. As a spokesperson for anyone or any polity, his history - which he quotes with no embarrassment, reveals pure ignorance of past events. The sooner mouthpieces like Mr. Corbyn are dismissed from public service, the sooner we will clearly perceive the threat that is in our midst. What HAS emerged from these ungrateful new immigrants, is their willingness to lie about any and all matters that will enable their trajectory to success - that is, in addition to blowing up young children, raping and plundering. Overall, it is not only that these new immigrants hew to a Stone Age culture, it is, without doubt, that their goal is to dispossess and subjugate all - wherever they find them - The Philippines, China, Russia, Australia, Canada, The US., Germany, etc. Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Angola and doubtless other countries in the very near future, have refused to accept these troublemakers, and rightly so. My suspicion is that these former Soviet Union countries know totalitarianism when they see it, by whatever name, and have rejected it. We should do the same. Either we put a firm and decisive end to the caliphate-seeking insurgents, by deportation-or if it comes to it-war, which appears to be what they seek, or we will indeed find ourselves, and future generations, enslaved by fourteenth century cretins- how terribly embarrassing for us.

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Harvey L • May 31, 2017 at 09:59

Mr Travers you are absolutely correct, most people who read articles on Gatestone will agree. The problem is most western leaders are in denial, they stupidly believe appeasing Islamic barbarians will stop terrorism it won't. Only force and determination will win the day, nothing else. First step is to call them Islamic terrorists and stop pulling the punches.

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Raymond G Zinn Harvey L • May 31, 2017 at 17:41

"The problem is most western leaders are in denial"

Everyone keeps says this, this is absolute nonsense.They know full well what they are doing, and what the repercussions are.What we need to know is what the string pullers are promising them.Once that truth gets out the foolishness will come to a screeching halt, and, as they say, heads will roll.This is more that simply "Agenda 21" of the NWO because that's all about total control of all.

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Ephesian Raymond G Zinn • Jun 3, 2017 at 10:25

You are absolutely correct. Of course they know what they are doing. A good while ago I asked myself that there MUST be a reason the government is allowing all these people to come flooding into the country, and started to dig and find out why. Everything fell into place! No borders, in effect no separate countries, NWO is their plan.

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Jeff Page • May 31, 2017 at 08:39

Therein lies the problem, Europe's leaders don't want to accept the truth, they are scared that it will cause their people to be fearful of the very real threat of Islam. Instead, they prefer to use Muslim attacks as a way to gradually erode our freedom. Simply by their reluctance to see Islam for what it really is they are encouraging, even more, atrocities to be carried out. Doing exactly what the Islamists want in order that people will eventually have enough and cave into demands from Muslims.

To have politicians stating that, a countries, foreign policy is to blame for this attack on our freedom is not only stupid but ridiculous and trying to suck up to Muslim communities rather than have to take action and confront them. We had the same attitude when Muslim men were grooming young white girls, the authorities turned a blind eye, they didn't care! All they were concerned about was that the white population would riot and protest at such atrocities, so they are following the same old cowardly path and are in pretense mode once again! Strange how the words Islamist or Islamic Terrorist aren't used when the politicians and media are only too happy to refer to Germans as Nazis and those that oppose Muslims as "right wingers"! The politicians and media then appear to be confused when many people consider them to have their own agenda.

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Albert Reingewirtz • May 31, 2017 at 06:55

You blame the politicians while being also part of the problem best exemplified in your own sentence: "At what point does an individual cease to be a Muslim and start to become a terrorist?" At no point! The terrorist can quote exactly why he does what he does from the Koran and the Hadith and all Muslim nod their head in appreciation and agreement. The terrorist is part and parcel of Islam you probably believe is a "religion of peace" despite all of it's history of conquest, mayhem against other religions, slavery, taking over holy sites and making them Islamic holy sites. Anyone courageous enough to look at Islam with open eyes will see what I see. Death, destruction, enslavement, rapes, beheadings...

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Mike Albert Reingewirtz • May 31, 2017 at 16:13

Much is being said and written concerning the number 500 relating to Martin Luther and the reformation (1517). However, I would like to point out a very important date for the world of Islam and its relationship to Europe, namely the year 1529, twelve years after the "Luther year,", that is, the year in which the Muslims "stood before the gates of Vienna." I suggest that all presently-known Islam-related attacks be viewed as advance (diversionary?) actions leading to ultimate success in establishing Europe-wide sharia in the year 2029. If we are so ignorant/immune to such facts, by the time we finally awaken, we will then be helpless/hopeless victims/observers.